The vicious decapitation of Stanley Preston, a wealthy, socially ambitious plantation owner, at Bloody Bridge draws Sebastian St. Cyr into a macabre and increasingly perilous investigation. The discovery near the body of an aged lead coffin strap bearing the inscription King Charles, 1648 suggests a link between this killing and the beheading of the deposed 17th-century Stuart monarch. Equally troubling, the victim's kinship to the current Home Secretary draws the notice of Sebastian's powerful father-in-law, Lord Jarvis.